The Altai Mountains spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China and Kazakhstan come together, where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The massif merges with the Sayan Mountains in the northeast, becomes lower in the southeast, where it merges into the high plateau of the Gobi Desert, it spans from about 45° to 52° N and from about 84° to 99° E. The region is inhabited by a sparse but ethnically diverse population, including Russians, Kazakhs and Mongolians; the local economy is based on bovine and horse husbandry, agriculture and mining. The now-disputed Altaic language family takes its name from this mountain range; the name comes from the word alt that means "gold" in Mongolic languages and the -tai suffix that means "with". That matches their old Chinese name 金山 "Gold Mountain"; the word for "gold" is altın in Turkic languages. The mountains are called Altain nuruu in Khalkha Mongolian, altai-yin niruɣu in Chakhar Mongolian, Altay tuular in the Altay language.

They are called Алтай таулары or التاي تاۋلارى‎ in Kazakh. In the north of the region is the Sailughem Mountains known as Kolyvan Altai, which stretch northeast from 49° N and 86° E towards the western extremity of the Sayan Mountains in 51° 60' N and 89° E, their mean elevation is 1,500 to 1,750 m. The snow-line runs at 2,000 m on the northern side and at 2,400 m on the southern, above it the rugged peaks tower some 1,000 m higher. Mountain passes across the range are few and difficult, the chief being the Ulan-daban at 2,827 m, the Chapchan-daban, at 3,217 m, in the south and north respectively. On the east and southeast this range is flanked by the great plateau of Mongolia, the transition being effected by means of several minor plateaus, such as Ukok with Pazyryk Valley, Kendykty, and; this region is studded with large lakes, e.g. Uvs 720 m above sea level, Khyargas and Khar 1,170 m, traversed by various mountain ranges, of which the principal are the Tannu-Ola Mountains, running parallel with the Sayan Mountains as far east as the Kosso-gol, the Khan Khökhii mountains stretching west and east.

The north western and northern slopes of the Sailughem Mountains are steep and difficult to access. On this side lies the highest summit of the range, the double-headed Belukha, whose summits reach 4,506 and 4,440 m and give origin to several glaciers. Altaians call it Kadyn Bazhy, but is called Uch-Sumer; the second highest peak of the range is in Mongolian part named Khüiten Peak. This massive peak reaches 4374 m. Numerous spurs, striking in all directions from the Sailughem mountains, fill up the space between that range and the lowlands of Tomsk; such are the Chuya Alps, having an average elevation of 2,700 m, with summits from 3,500 to 3,700 m, at least ten glaciers on their northern slope. Several secondary plateaus of lower elevations are distinguished by geographers, The Katun Valley begins as a wild gorge on the south-west slope of Belukha; the Katun and the Biya together form the Ob. The next valley is that of the Charysh, which has the Korgon and Tigeretsk Alps on one side and the Talitsk and Bashalatsk Alps on the other.

This, too, is fertile. The Altai, seen from this valley, presents the most romantic scenes, including the small but deep Kolyvan Lake, surrounded by fantastic granite domes and towers. Farther west the valleys of the Uba, the Ulba and the Bukhtarma open south-westwards towards the Irtysh; the lower part of the first, like the lower valley of the Charysh, is thickly populated. The valley of the Bukhtarma, which has a length of 320 km has its origin at the foot of the Belukha and the Kuitun peaks, as it falls some 1,500 m in about 300 km, from an alpine plateau at an elevation of 1,900 m to the Bukhtarma fortress, it offers the most striking contrasts of landscape and vegetation, its upper parts abound in glaciers, the best known of, the Berel, which comes down from the Byelukha. On the northern side of the range which separates the upper Bukhtarma from the upper Katun is the Katun glacier, which after two ice-falls widens out to 700 to 900 metres. From a grotto in this glacier bursts tumultuously the Katun river.

The middle and lower parts of the Bukhtarma valley have been colonized since the 18th century by runaway Russian peasants and religious schismatics, who created a free republic there on Chinese territory. The high valleys farther north, on the same western face of the Sailughem range, are but little known, their only visitors being Kyrgyz shepherds; those of Bashkaus, Ch

There is a Mexican American community in the Chicago metropolitan area. The first Mexicans who came to Chicago entertainers and itinerants, came before the turn of the 20th Century. In the mid to late 1910s Chicago had its first significant wave of Mexican immigrants; the immigrants were men working in semiskilled and unskilled jobs who originated from Texas and from Guanajuato and Michoacán. After immigration was reduced in the 1920s, internal migration from the Southwestern United States became the primary driver of Mexican population growth in Chicago. Circa the 1920s Mexicans were used as a buffer between Blacks. René Luis Alvarez, a professor at Northeastern Illinois University, stated that Whites perceived Mexicans to be apolitical and docile and treated the people originating from Mexico "with a kind of benign neglect and ignored their social needs or living conditions." About 33% of the 20,000 persons of Mexican origin in Chicago were male family members of the single male workers, and/or women and children.

By the end of the 1930s the Mexican population had declined to 14,000. Kerr of the Illinois Periodicals Online of Northern Illinois University Libraries stated that officials "seem to have been" less harsh towards those of Mexican origins compared to officials in areas of the Southwest United States. Circa 1941 the Mexican population had risen to 16,000. During the 1940s braceros were brought to Chicago and became a part of the Mexican-American community. There were 35,000 people categorized as Spanish-speaking in Chicago by 1950, including Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. In 1960 there were 23,000 Chicagoans. In 1970 that number was 47,397, that year, of all major U. S. cities, Chicago had the fourth-largest Spanish-speaking population. From 1960 to 1970 there was an 84% increase in the number of Chicagoans who had at least one parent born in Mexico. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Mexican-origin people in Chicago became politically active. From the 1990 U. S. Census to the 2000 U. S. Census, the percentage of Mexican Americans in all of Cook County, Illinois increased by 69%, the percentage of Mexicans in the City of Chicago in particular increased by 50% in the same time period.

As a result, Chicago's number of Mexicans surpassed the number in the cities of Houston and San Antonio, Texas. As of the 2000 U. S. Census there were 786,000 residents of full or partial Mexican origin in Cook County, giving it the largest ethnic Mexican population in the United States, not in the Southwest and the third largest ethnic Mexican population of any county after Los Angeles County and Harris County, Texas; as of that year the number of ethnic Mexicans in Cook County is greater than that of each of the metropolitan areas of Acapulco, Cuernavaca and Veracruz. The total includes over 530,000 residents of the City of Chicago; as of the 2010 Census, 961,963 residents of Cook County, including 578,100 residents of the City of Chicago, had full or partial Mexican origins. Mexican neighborhoods include Pilsen in the Lower West Little Village in South Lawndale. In the 1990s 40% of the Mexican origin population in Pilsen had migrated directly there from Mexico, about 33% of the Mexican origin population in the Chicago area lived in Pilsen.

The Mexicans in the Near West Side settled south of Hull House along Halsted and patronized the St. Francis of Assisi church. Beginning in the 1930s the athletic team Saint Francis Wildcats, which had Mexican members, began meeting in the gymnasium of St. Francis of Assisi, the members moved on to fight in World War II; the Hull House residents were displaced by the 1960s construction of the University of Illinois Chicago, they moved to Pilsen and/or to suburban communities. In the post-1920s period the Mexicans in Back of the Yards worked in meatpacking. In 1945 the first Mexican church opened there. Mexicans began moving into South Chicago in the post-1920s period, there they stuck to defined neighborhoods and were a part of the working class, they joined area unions by the 1940s. The National Museum of Mexican Art is located in Pilsen. Mexicans focused on improving their own neighborhoods and establishing their own organizations to do so after the 1920s. Fraternal organizations and mutual aid groups or mutualistas were established.

By the middle of the 20th century newer organizations had been established. The Committee on Mexican American Interests promoted Mexican American student councils to encourage students to participate in higher education, promoted the G. I. Bill in the post-World War II period, established a project with the Mexican Community Committee of South Chicago to gather potential recipients of scholarships and applicants to universities, doing so by asking high school teachers working in Chicago neighborhoods with large numbers of Mexican-origin students to provide lists of names. Circa the middle of the 20th century the Mexican Community Committee of South Chicago and the Mexican Civic Committee of the West Side worked with LULAC to promote the value of getting an education among Mexican-American youth. In general the newer organizations worked within existing power structures to promote education instead of trying to establish their own independent educational programs; as of 2001, despite being the largest Hispanic and Latino ethnic group in Chicago, Mexicans have some, but less political representation than Chicago's Puerto Ricans.